Museum of Vinnytsia Receives 1943 Newspaper Documenting Victims of Stalinist Repression
The Museum of Vinnytsia has received a rare Ukrainian-language copy of the newspaper “Krakivski Visti” dated July 16, 1943. The historical publication contains material about the exhumation and burial of victims of Stalinist repression in Vinnytsia.
A Rare Historical Newspaper Enters the Museum Collection
The Museum of Vinnytsia has added a Ukrainian-language issue of Krakivski Visti from July 16, 1943, to its collection of historical sources.
The newspaper contains a contemporary account of the exhumation and burial of victims of Stalinist repression in Vinnytsia, making the issue a documentary source connected directly to one of the city’s most important historical tragedies.
The Newspaper Was Donated by Yevhen Pshenychniy
The historic issue was donated to the museum by Yevhen Pshenychniy, a researcher, bibliophile and candidate of philological sciences who has studied Ukrainian books and the history of Vinnytsia.
The Museum of Vinnytsia said the transfer was the result of Pshenychniy’s long-term scholarly work and his continued cooperation with the institution.
Four Historical Publications Were Donated
The newspaper was one of four historical sources transferred to the museum.
The collection also includes Petro Pavlovych’s illustrated book Podillia. Historical Monuments, published in Augsburg in 1946 and signed by the author; V. Koval’s Moscow’s Crime in Vinnytsia, published in New York in 1951; and Antin Drahan’s Let Us Remember Vinnytsia, published in Jersey in 1986.
Together, the publications document how information about Vinnytsia and the crimes of the Soviet regime was preserved and circulated beyond Soviet-controlled Ukraine.
The 1943 Issue Records the Vinnytsia Exhumations
The Krakivski Visti issue is particularly significant because it was published in 1943, during the German occupation of Ukraine, when mass graves discovered in Vinnytsia were being investigated.
Historical research confirms that the exhumations in Vinnytsia revealed thousands of victims of Soviet executions carried out before the German invasion.
The newly acquired newspaper therefore provides a period source for studying how the events were reported at the time.
The Museum Continues to Expand Its Historical Collection
The donation adds another rare item to the Museum of Vinnytsia’s holdings relating to the city’s 20th-century history.
The institution said the materials are valuable for preserving historical memory and for further research into Vinnytsia, Podillia and Ukrainian publishing outside Soviet Ukraine.
